[Music]
this past week malware infected hundreds
of thousands of computers worldwide
incapacitating some of our most
vulnerable institutions like hospitals
if these had been on blockchain networks
this could have been prevented
in fact blockchain technology can not
only make us more secure but can also
drive economic and social change the
values underneath blockchain technology
some of these values are transparency
disintermediation which means removing
the middleman collaboration and
experimentation these last two
collaboration and experimentation are
what got me to where I am today in 2008
after the financial crisis worldwide I
lost my job I was in San Francisco a
very competitive and desperate
environment and I very quickly needed to
get creative and figure out how to make
do with less I started reading about
peer-to-peer networks and I found a
company a startup that was doing car
sharing so I reached out to them and
they very quickly replied back and I
became the first person in San Francisco
to share their car people told me it was
crazy it was a very risky to handle my
keys to a complete stranger and it was
kind of risky but it was a great
experiment and I had wonderful
experiences like the person whose family
came to visit and he took my car for one
week up to Napa Valley to go
wine-tasting when they came back brought
my car back and left me a bottle of wine
in the car as a thank you I also had
negative experiences like the person who
borrowed my car and then got so stoned
they never brought it back we eventually
found the car and we knew what had
happened because of the smell the car
was cleaned everything was ok and
ultimately an asset that had been
sitting in my driveway 4 days a week
idle was now earning me money
in two years I earned back the value of
the car of five year old car there were
other experience experiences that also
overlapped with these values and that
have propelled me one of these is
Burning Man I’ve been going for 13 years
and it’s a fantastic example of some of
these same values
it’s a giant collective effort seventy
thousand people living in a very hot
desert for one week people share
resources if they need help they ask for
help the openness and the collaboration
is very inspiring and I explored other
networks as well I went to Bitcoin
meetups I did couchsurfing I did time
banking I did co-working and I travelled
around the world at the Bitcoin meetups
there was this practice of one minute
lightning talks where anyone from the
audience could come up and stand with a
microphone for one minute and talk about
anything they wanted what they were
working on if they needed help with
something if they were startup and were
hiring anything and these meetups were
live streamed so anyone all over the
world could watch them and learn and
they were recorded and then posted on
YouTube so again more people could watch
them and learn
this openness and collaboration have
propelled me to where I am today which
is kind of amazing because I don’t have
a technical background and in fact I
regularly battle impostor syndrome but I
went from losing my job in 2008 to
getting paid to travel the world and
talk about peer-to-peer networks and
blockchain technology before I go any
further I want to ask a question with a
show of hands how many of you have heard
about Bitcoin and blockchain but don’t
quite understand what it is okay that’s
a lot of you so I’m gonna give a quick
and simplified overview of Bitcoin and
blockchain Bitcoin is a digital currency
it is purely digital does not exist in
any physical form it was created by this
anonymous software programmer named
Satoshi Nakamoto who wrote this white
paper and then uploaded the software to
the internet for anyone to look at
examine discuss copy in this
peer-to-peer electronic cash system the
key point was that it’s not controlled
by a government or corporation or a bank
this means that if you live in Greece
and suddenly the banks and the
government have decided that you can’t
pull your cash out of your bank account
you can still use Bitcoin or if you live
in Venezuela where the inflation rate
has shot up to eight hundred percent you
can still use Bitcoin the Bitcoin
blockchain is a network of computers all
over the world that are running this
program that are running this software
the blockchain validates all the
transactions
and it tracks all the transactions on an
accounting ledger this is an old version
of an accounting ledger the new modern
version the digital version is open
transparent public everyone can see
every transaction the date the time the
amount from which account to which
account and it’s on a peer-to-peer
network so it’s almost instant the
transaction fees are minuscule so for
example if I live in the United States
and I want to send money to my sister in
Italy in the past I would have to do a
wire transfer four to ten days for the
money to arrive I pay a fee on my end
she pays a fee on her end on the Bitcoin
blockchain it’s instant miniscule fees
currency conversion is no problem when
we have transparency in these systems we
can see where we have traditionally been
charged fees and we can now take those
middlemen out of the equation another
way that the Bitcoin blockchain is
disrupting industries is with the
remittance industry migrant workers
don’t have access to bank accounts
because they don’t have citizenship in
the country where they’re working or
they don’t have permanent residences and
they want to send money back home
traditionally the only options they had
charged a very high fees and the
families on the other end had to walk
and go to one location to pick up the
money now you can send money on your
cellphone instant transactions very
small fees instant currency conversions
so that’s the Bitcoin blockchain and
that’s one lock chain there are other
block chains now they all have slightly
different applications and slightly
different features
another one I’m going to talk about is
the etherium blockchain now the assyrian
blockchain is also open source
decentralized transparent public it’s
secure cryptographically secured and
it’s a collective effort the etherion
blockchain was designed specifically to
run automated software programs like
smart contracts that’s what they call
them so an example of how I could use
the ethereum blockchain is if I had a
will that left money to my niece’s after
I passed away when they turned 18 when
they’re going to university so I would
write the contract I would upload it to
the etherium Network and when all of the
requirements were met it would
automatically disperse the funds no
lawyers no notaries another application
of the etherium Network is digital
identities securing and accessing
digital identities on a decentralized
network means that you don’t need to
have a driver’s license a passport
health insurance voter registration
transit pass all individual systems that
don’t communicate and that mean all
these cards and all these documents you
have to have a decentralized digital
identity means that all of that
information is in one place it can be
accessed as needed and it’s on a network
that is cryptographically secured so
this would be useful for someone like
refugees for example who don’t have
documents lose their documents and
travel around a lot the other advantage
of this decentralized network is that it
doesn’t have a single point of failure
there isn’t a computer that can then be
hacked and malware inserted and a ransom
demanded like happened in this past week
so there’s so many more blockchain
applications that are being created
right now this is a map of startups that
are coming up now there’s many
experiments being tried right now some
of the experiments are a little timid
they are trying to create closed block
chains or permissioned block chains or
block chains that are not public and I
think they’re missing the point the
openness and the transparency if we keep
doing the same thing that we’ve been
doing then we can’t actually reach the
two billion unbanked people in the world
who don’t have access to financial
institutions who need loans to grow
their businesses or to build new homes
we need to embrace all of our citizens
like we do at Burning Man and we need to
collectively raise everyone up we need
to recognize that a happy and a healthy
me helps create a happy and healthy you
and that collaboration adds more value
for more people we’re at the point right
now much like the internet in 1969 1970
when a few universities got together to
create a communication network that was
better than faxing and phone calls today
we can watch and stream funny cat videos
on our telephones this is not something
that was imaginable at all in 1969 or
1970 so what can blockchains blockchain
platforms become if we keep this spirit
of openness and collaboration if we keep
things transparent and decentralized if
we disintermediate remove the middleman
it will take all of us you and me to
contribute to try out these new
platforms to try new things to take
risks
it will take all of us the more people
are involved the more value is added and
the more possibilities we have in front
of us
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
this past week malware infected hundreds
of thousands of computers worldwide
incapacitating some of our most
vulnerable institutions like hospitals
if these had been on blockchain networks
this could have been prevented
in fact blockchain technology can not
only make us more secure but can also
drive economic and social change the
values underneath blockchain technology
some of these values are transparency
disintermediation which means removing
the middleman collaboration and
experimentation these last two
collaboration and experimentation are
what got me to where I am today in 2008
after the financial crisis worldwide I
lost my job I was in San Francisco a
very competitive and desperate
environment and I very quickly needed to
get creative and figure out how to make
do with less I started reading about
peer-to-peer networks and I found a
company a startup that was doing car
sharing so I reached out to them and
they very quickly replied back and I
became the first person in San Francisco
to share their car people told me it was
crazy it was a very risky to handle my
keys to a complete stranger and it was
kind of risky but it was a great
experiment and I had wonderful
experiences like the person whose family
came to visit and he took my car for one
week up to Napa Valley to go
wine-tasting when they came back brought
my car back and left me a bottle of wine
in the car as a thank you I also had
negative experiences like the person who
borrowed my car and then got so stoned
they never brought it back we eventually
found the car and we knew what had
happened because of the smell the car
was cleaned everything was ok and
ultimately an asset that had been
sitting in my driveway 4 days a week
idle was now earning me money
in two years I earned back the value of
the car of five year old car there were
other experience experiences that also
overlapped with these values and that
have propelled me one of these is
Burning Man I’ve been going for 13 years
and it’s a fantastic example of some of
these same values
it’s a giant collective effort seventy
thousand people living in a very hot
desert for one week people share
resources if they need help they ask for
help the openness and the collaboration
is very inspiring and I explored other
networks as well I went to Bitcoin
meetups I did couchsurfing I did time
banking I did co-working and I travelled
around the world at the Bitcoin meetups
there was this practice of one minute
lightning talks where anyone from the
audience could come up and stand with a
microphone for one minute and talk about
anything they wanted what they were
working on if they needed help with
something if they were startup and were
hiring anything and these meetups were
live streamed so anyone all over the
world could watch them and learn and
they were recorded and then posted on
YouTube so again more people could watch
them and learn
this openness and collaboration have
propelled me to where I am today which
is kind of amazing because I don’t have
a technical background and in fact I
regularly battle impostor syndrome but I
went from losing my job in 2008 to
getting paid to travel the world and
talk about peer-to-peer networks and
blockchain technology before I go any
further I want to ask a question with a
show of hands how many of you have heard
about Bitcoin and blockchain but don’t
quite understand what it is okay that’s
a lot of you so I’m gonna give a quick
and simplified overview of Bitcoin and
blockchain Bitcoin is a digital currency
it is purely digital does not exist in
any physical form it was created by this
anonymous software programmer named
Satoshi Nakamoto who wrote this white
paper and then uploaded the software to
the internet for anyone to look at
examine discuss copy in this
peer-to-peer electronic cash system the
key point was that it’s not controlled
by a government or corporation or a bank
this means that if you live in Greece
and suddenly the banks and the
government have decided that you can’t
pull your cash out of your bank account
you can still use Bitcoin or if you live
in Venezuela where the inflation rate
has shot up to eight hundred percent you
can still use Bitcoin the Bitcoin
blockchain is a network of computers all
over the world that are running this
program that are running this software
the blockchain validates all the
transactions
and it tracks all the transactions on an
accounting ledger this is an old version
of an accounting ledger the new modern
version the digital version is open
transparent public everyone can see
every transaction the date the time the
amount from which account to which
account and it’s on a peer-to-peer
network so it’s almost instant the
transaction fees are minuscule so for
example if I live in the United States
and I want to send money to my sister in
Italy in the past I would have to do a
wire transfer four to ten days for the
money to arrive I pay a fee on my end
she pays a fee on her end on the Bitcoin
blockchain it’s instant miniscule fees
currency conversion is no problem when
we have transparency in these systems we
can see where we have traditionally been
charged fees and we can now take those
middlemen out of the equation another
way that the Bitcoin blockchain is
disrupting industries is with the
remittance industry migrant workers
don’t have access to bank accounts
because they don’t have citizenship in
the country where they’re working or
they don’t have permanent residences and
they want to send money back home
traditionally the only options they had
charged a very high fees and the
families on the other end had to walk
and go to one location to pick up the
money now you can send money on your
cellphone instant transactions very
small fees instant currency conversions
so that’s the Bitcoin blockchain and
that’s one lock chain there are other
block chains now they all have slightly
different applications and slightly
different features
another one I’m going to talk about is
the etherium blockchain now the assyrian
blockchain is also open source
decentralized transparent public it’s
secure cryptographically secured and
it’s a collective effort the etherion
blockchain was designed specifically to
run automated software programs like
smart contracts that’s what they call
them so an example of how I could use
the ethereum blockchain is if I had a
will that left money to my niece’s after
I passed away when they turned 18 when
they’re going to university so I would
write the contract I would upload it to
the etherium Network and when all of the
requirements were met it would
automatically disperse the funds no
lawyers no notaries another application
of the etherium Network is digital
identities securing and accessing
digital identities on a decentralized
network means that you don’t need to
have a driver’s license a passport
health insurance voter registration
transit pass all individual systems that
don’t communicate and that mean all
these cards and all these documents you
have to have a decentralized digital
identity means that all of that
information is in one place it can be
accessed as needed and it’s on a network
that is cryptographically secured so
this would be useful for someone like
refugees for example who don’t have
documents lose their documents and
travel around a lot the other advantage
of this decentralized network is that it
doesn’t have a single point of failure
there isn’t a computer that can then be
hacked and malware inserted and a ransom
demanded like happened in this past week
so there’s so many more blockchain
applications that are being created
right now this is a map of startups that
are coming up now there’s many
experiments being tried right now some
of the experiments are a little timid
they are trying to create closed block
chains or permissioned block chains or
block chains that are not public and I
think they’re missing the point the
openness and the transparency if we keep
doing the same thing that we’ve been
doing then we can’t actually reach the
two billion unbanked people in the world
who don’t have access to financial
institutions who need loans to grow
their businesses or to build new homes
we need to embrace all of our citizens
like we do at Burning Man and we need to
collectively raise everyone up we need
to recognize that a happy and a healthy
me helps create a happy and healthy you
and that collaboration adds more value
for more people we’re at the point right
now much like the internet in 1969 1970
when a few universities got together to
create a communication network that was
better than faxing and phone calls today
we can watch and stream funny cat videos
on our telephones this is not something
that was imaginable at all in 1969 or
1970 so what can blockchains blockchain
platforms become if we keep this spirit
of openness and collaboration if we keep
things transparent and decentralized if
we disintermediate remove the middleman
it will take all of us you and me to
contribute to try out these new
platforms to try new things to take
risks
it will take all of us the more people
are involved the more value is added and
the more possibilities we have in front
of us
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
Please follow and like us: